Talking about this game is like poking a hornet’s nest with a crooked stick, at least it would be if I had a bigger platform (charming). But what the hell! So too do I like this game, not as much as Part I, but I do like it. With that said though, there is still plenty of room for scrutiny here.
Deigned to follow the perspectives of Ellie and Abby, the sequence of events the player is thrusted upon takes place over three consecutive days as our heroines go through their own trials and tribulations in the long downtrodden and war ravaged Seattle. Being conceptually sound, it can still feel uneven, given that some days are longer than others and have their own gimmicks when it comes to encounter design. On the climax of the narrative, the one in the theater on day three, when the turn is taken and the audience is meant to get catharsis after hours of watching the winds and gulches, they cut it in half to tell us another side to the story, which puts a grinding halt to it, having to build that momentum up again over the course of roughly ten hours. Actual lunacy at display there. No kidding that so many people dropped the game at the halfway point when they were told they had to play more of it with a character they dislike.
Not to mention the epilogue in Santa Barbara, while being paramount to the story, still felt out of place what with the time jump, the new slaver faction in the Rattlers, and what trailed off it during the fight in the theater. Brazen is what I would use to describe the narrative structure of this game. Never have I seen a game before with the gusto to do something like pulling the proverbial rug from under you right before you think the game is about to end, only for it to not even be close. On top of that, you have to play as the goddamn VILLAIN of the story, which you come to learn really isn’t one and is just another flawed person with method to their madness. That’s where the brazen part comes into play, because it still serves its purpose despite being as confounding as it is.
The framework for gameplay is the same as the first game with layers stacked on it that makes it multi-faceted, that while not to the same degree of complexity as something like The Phantom Pain or Chaos Theory, is still on the same spectrum. Exploration actually feels like exploration now, and with the difficulty modifiers you can make the experience as grueling as you want. Despite the gameplay being, quite frankly phenomenal, and the narrative what it is whether you take to it or not, which I did, and have my own arguments as to its internal logic and how it's sturdier than some make it out to be, one thing that sticks out is that they don’t quite mesh like the team intended.
Just as other media can use its language to elevate itself and get itself across to whoever engages with it clearer, so too can video games. Whether visual, auditory, literary, or otherwise, just like other mediums have those facets, video games have interactivity as theirs. Plenty of games do this right, just on the principle of them being games, by mere accident. Even games people dismiss or deride for how they don’t use the medium’s strengths to their advantage, or lack story despite not being true at all, are true to that; The Last of Us Part I, God of Norse, Metal Gear Solid, Death Stranding, or stuff like Dark Souls, Metroid, or the Warhammer 40K franchise on the other side of the pond. Each one of these games makes the act of “play” an intrinsic part of the experience that forces you to engage with it at another level than how you normally would, rather than just something with an extrinsic goal, enhancing the stories they tell.
Yes, the notion that games should be “fun” has for the longest time made up the discourse, and it will continue to, but it’s okay for games to challenge that notion and do something beyond the pale of game design. There are games that are unconventional in their design philosophies, or downright frustrating, that still succeed at what they set out to do for those reasons. Exemplar of this is Pathologic, Fear & Hunger, and Darkest Dungeon, games which derive from and even explore surrealism, or more closely, the Theater of Cruelty, as proposed by French playwright Antonin Artaud.
The Last of Us Part II, despite being the rock solid video game that it is, who's story is better than people give it credit for, for as audacious as it is, tries to do this but ultimately comes up short. I feel like the success of a game doesn’t have to hinge on this but it would be better off that way, and while it is overblown in cases like Uncharted or Bioshock, which are punching bags for the crowd that upholds ludic narrative, The Last of Us Part II still ends up contradicting itself when those two games really don’t. Does that have to nullify the effect of what it’s trying to get across? No, that’s up to you, but it still fails to cross story and gameplay in key ways. That’s not to say they didn’t try though, they most certainly did, and the effort is commendable.
Let’s take Uncharted for one. Those games balance story and gameplay yes, but they don’t try to make them coincide. They are relatively divorced from each other and only serve to propel each other to make for the most bombastic, pudding in your pants, set-piece laden action romp. Sure, Uncharted 4 and the Lost Legacy took some strides took make gameplay inform the actions of the character, but even then, you could contend that death doesn’t carry the same weight in the Uncharted universe as it does in other games. It's okay for Nathan to kill droves of nondescript baddies because that's all they are. There is no real ludic narrative to speak of, therefore there really is no dissonance.
As for Bioshock, I can kind of see where it comes from. The point of the game is that Jack was strung along, with the player and Jack simultaneously learning he was just a sleeper agent. But apparently, for some this makes the binary system to harvest or spare little sisters and the directives from Atlas you have to follow go against the themes of the game. However, while the game doesn't establish that Jack wouldn't be able to deem things worth doing on his own, it also doesn't show us he has a strong sense of expressed self-interest. What triggers him is the key phrase "Would you kindly?" It's not like Atlas ever said, or had any reason to say that phrase to Jack in the event he meddled with things that conflicted with the objective, because none of what you do as the player does.
If anything, as basic as that system is, and the fact that you can't break the sequence of the story despite the central theme of the game being objectivism, they actually ADD to the story, showing that despite the proverbial shackles Jack has, he can break them and still has the capacity to tread his own path, whether that means acting on his own accord or on the behalf of others; it becomes his will to which side he takes, and not the will of a higher power. This is further solidified by one of the two endings you can get. It’s crazy to me that for the longest time Bioshock has been regarded as dissonant of all things for how it handles the development of the main character, when it’s the exact opposite, and only proves the story works.
Going back on track though, Ellie and Abby have distinct play styles, animations, load-outs, and upgrade trees. There is enough room to play the hard way and avoid combat altogether, even if it is necessary for progression at points. A lot of the best storytelling comes from gameplay too, being diegetic, opening up dialogue prompts with companions, and of course, spreading details you can miss around every crevice.
Being particular, some character defining details that are communicated strictly in gameplay also enrich the game. Details like Abby and her overcoming of her acrophobia, or Ellie progressively getting more unhinged as per the day the game takes place, make the potentiality for the player connecting to the characters ever stronger. They also solidify things the game set thematically, like othering, indoctrination, group think, and what can come of said aspects of humanity and how we can give them up, not be despondent about our conditions and work to improve them, and open up to things we once were closed off to and resentful of.
It has an effective through-line and makes with these as best it can but it still doesn’t reach its true potential, especially pared with Part I. It still works in the face of it, but that is something to pay heed to if you plan to play it, or already played it but didn’t jive with it. There will be things that go against what you’re used to, characters will make decisions you don’t agree with, but if you take the time to shift your perspective and engage with the game differently you can come to compromise and enjoy the game for what it is rather than hold scorn for it for going against what you thought it would be. Same as it is for Ellie and Abby and the hate they harbor for each other, a shift in perspective goes a long way.
Does the story have its fair share of “deus ex machinas” as the long men call them? Yes, but do they bring it down for me? No, not only because none of them are egregious and you can easily hand wave them, but because the game still manages to be internally consistent. Even if they did, I STILL wouldn’t lump this game next to the likes of the Star Wars ST, which I regret seeing, Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, which I regret playing, Borderlands 3, which was really fun but still had a dog water story apparently (I haven’t finished it), or Game of Thrones S8, which I haven’t seen and don’t want to.
It respects its characters and it respects the audience to draw their own conclusions, take the story for what it is, which evidently, seems like the opposite of what happened. Despite the droplets that slipped through the faint cracks, the exterior is stock and the interior is unsullied. This story generally works, what with the misgivings you might have with it or what stumbles it makes along the way to greatness.
As for the remaster in question:
No Return only underpinned what we laid out. A mode revolving around the, admittedly, robust combat system, with incremental rewards during every run with mods accenting them. It comes off as somewhat tone deaf, at least it can. It didn’t for me necessarily because I believe a game can have a point and still be fun despite it, but it can and will for many who play it.
The Lost Levels were what I was looking forward to the most. Once I got to play them, it turned out that the three vertical slice levels weren’t the rendering exclusions I’d hoped for. For stuff that was left at the cutting room floor, especially how it was advertised, I came in expecting there to be revelations that gave the creative decisions context, but no, they were rather inutile, with just the boar hunt giving Ellie more proper characterization. That’s fine, but still.
Is it evocative? Does it seem like shock value for the sake of it? For the some it may, but it has something to say, and it leaves the door open for a Part III to be more satisfying for everyone. I think this game was an experiment that paid off in some ways and didn’t in others, but was worth taking part in. I love this game. You may hate it, be indifferent to it, or love it just the same, and that’s okay. One thing is for sure and that’s how nuance has left the chat altogether when it comes to media discourse, at least on like, Twitter… maybe I just need to disconnect. On its own terms, it does end up working when held up to measured criticism for most part. Many people are letting their feelings cloud their judgement, hampering their ability to properly evaluate this game. It’s not something I believe, it’s something that is. On our terms, it may be flawed, even compromised in small ways, but it worked for me, and if you haven’t played it yet, I hope it works for you too.
Just for good measure, since I’m two for two on covering songs in games that aren’t part of the soundtrack, let’s bump that up to three. As follows is how I’d rank the covers and rarities EP.
1. True Faith - Inspired by Lotte Kesner’s cover
2. Wayfaring Stranger
3. Through the valley
4. Future Days
5. Take on Me
Deigned to follow the perspectives of Ellie and Abby, the sequence of events the player is thrusted upon takes place over three consecutive days as our heroines go through their own trials and tribulations in the long downtrodden and war ravaged Seattle. Being conceptually sound, it can still feel uneven, given that some days are longer than others and have their own gimmicks when it comes to encounter design. On the climax of the narrative, the one in the theater on day three, when the turn is taken and the audience is meant to get catharsis after hours of watching the winds and gulches, they cut it in half to tell us another side to the story, which puts a grinding halt to it, having to build that momentum up again over the course of roughly ten hours. Actual lunacy at display there. No kidding that so many people dropped the game at the halfway point when they were told they had to play more of it with a character they dislike.
Not to mention the epilogue in Santa Barbara, while being paramount to the story, still felt out of place what with the time jump, the new slaver faction in the Rattlers, and what trailed off it during the fight in the theater. Brazen is what I would use to describe the narrative structure of this game. Never have I seen a game before with the gusto to do something like pulling the proverbial rug from under you right before you think the game is about to end, only for it to not even be close. On top of that, you have to play as the goddamn VILLAIN of the story, which you come to learn really isn’t one and is just another flawed person with method to their madness. That’s where the brazen part comes into play, because it still serves its purpose despite being as confounding as it is.
The framework for gameplay is the same as the first game with layers stacked on it that makes it multi-faceted, that while not to the same degree of complexity as something like The Phantom Pain or Chaos Theory, is still on the same spectrum. Exploration actually feels like exploration now, and with the difficulty modifiers you can make the experience as grueling as you want. Despite the gameplay being, quite frankly phenomenal, and the narrative what it is whether you take to it or not, which I did, and have my own arguments as to its internal logic and how it's sturdier than some make it out to be, one thing that sticks out is that they don’t quite mesh like the team intended.
Just as other media can use its language to elevate itself and get itself across to whoever engages with it clearer, so too can video games. Whether visual, auditory, literary, or otherwise, just like other mediums have those facets, video games have interactivity as theirs. Plenty of games do this right, just on the principle of them being games, by mere accident. Even games people dismiss or deride for how they don’t use the medium’s strengths to their advantage, or lack story despite not being true at all, are true to that; The Last of Us Part I, God of Norse, Metal Gear Solid, Death Stranding, or stuff like Dark Souls, Metroid, or the Warhammer 40K franchise on the other side of the pond. Each one of these games makes the act of “play” an intrinsic part of the experience that forces you to engage with it at another level than how you normally would, rather than just something with an extrinsic goal, enhancing the stories they tell.
Yes, the notion that games should be “fun” has for the longest time made up the discourse, and it will continue to, but it’s okay for games to challenge that notion and do something beyond the pale of game design. There are games that are unconventional in their design philosophies, or downright frustrating, that still succeed at what they set out to do for those reasons. Exemplar of this is Pathologic, Fear & Hunger, and Darkest Dungeon, games which derive from and even explore surrealism, or more closely, the Theater of Cruelty, as proposed by French playwright Antonin Artaud.
The Last of Us Part II, despite being the rock solid video game that it is, who's story is better than people give it credit for, for as audacious as it is, tries to do this but ultimately comes up short. I feel like the success of a game doesn’t have to hinge on this but it would be better off that way, and while it is overblown in cases like Uncharted or Bioshock, which are punching bags for the crowd that upholds ludic narrative, The Last of Us Part II still ends up contradicting itself when those two games really don’t. Does that have to nullify the effect of what it’s trying to get across? No, that’s up to you, but it still fails to cross story and gameplay in key ways. That’s not to say they didn’t try though, they most certainly did, and the effort is commendable.
Let’s take Uncharted for one. Those games balance story and gameplay yes, but they don’t try to make them coincide. They are relatively divorced from each other and only serve to propel each other to make for the most bombastic, pudding in your pants, set-piece laden action romp. Sure, Uncharted 4 and the Lost Legacy took some strides took make gameplay inform the actions of the character, but even then, you could contend that death doesn’t carry the same weight in the Uncharted universe as it does in other games. It's okay for Nathan to kill droves of nondescript baddies because that's all they are. There is no real ludic narrative to speak of, therefore there really is no dissonance.
As for Bioshock, I can kind of see where it comes from. The point of the game is that Jack was strung along, with the player and Jack simultaneously learning he was just a sleeper agent. But apparently, for some this makes the binary system to harvest or spare little sisters and the directives from Atlas you have to follow go against the themes of the game. However, while the game doesn't establish that Jack wouldn't be able to deem things worth doing on his own, it also doesn't show us he has a strong sense of expressed self-interest. What triggers him is the key phrase "Would you kindly?" It's not like Atlas ever said, or had any reason to say that phrase to Jack in the event he meddled with things that conflicted with the objective, because none of what you do as the player does.
If anything, as basic as that system is, and the fact that you can't break the sequence of the story despite the central theme of the game being objectivism, they actually ADD to the story, showing that despite the proverbial shackles Jack has, he can break them and still has the capacity to tread his own path, whether that means acting on his own accord or on the behalf of others; it becomes his will to which side he takes, and not the will of a higher power. This is further solidified by one of the two endings you can get. It’s crazy to me that for the longest time Bioshock has been regarded as dissonant of all things for how it handles the development of the main character, when it’s the exact opposite, and only proves the story works.
Going back on track though, Ellie and Abby have distinct play styles, animations, load-outs, and upgrade trees. There is enough room to play the hard way and avoid combat altogether, even if it is necessary for progression at points. A lot of the best storytelling comes from gameplay too, being diegetic, opening up dialogue prompts with companions, and of course, spreading details you can miss around every crevice.
Being particular, some character defining details that are communicated strictly in gameplay also enrich the game. Details like Abby and her overcoming of her acrophobia, or Ellie progressively getting more unhinged as per the day the game takes place, make the potentiality for the player connecting to the characters ever stronger. They also solidify things the game set thematically, like othering, indoctrination, group think, and what can come of said aspects of humanity and how we can give them up, not be despondent about our conditions and work to improve them, and open up to things we once were closed off to and resentful of.
It has an effective through-line and makes with these as best it can but it still doesn’t reach its true potential, especially pared with Part I. It still works in the face of it, but that is something to pay heed to if you plan to play it, or already played it but didn’t jive with it. There will be things that go against what you’re used to, characters will make decisions you don’t agree with, but if you take the time to shift your perspective and engage with the game differently you can come to compromise and enjoy the game for what it is rather than hold scorn for it for going against what you thought it would be. Same as it is for Ellie and Abby and the hate they harbor for each other, a shift in perspective goes a long way.
Does the story have its fair share of “deus ex machinas” as the long men call them? Yes, but do they bring it down for me? No, not only because none of them are egregious and you can easily hand wave them, but because the game still manages to be internally consistent. Even if they did, I STILL wouldn’t lump this game next to the likes of the Star Wars ST, which I regret seeing, Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, which I regret playing, Borderlands 3, which was really fun but still had a dog water story apparently (I haven’t finished it), or Game of Thrones S8, which I haven’t seen and don’t want to.
It respects its characters and it respects the audience to draw their own conclusions, take the story for what it is, which evidently, seems like the opposite of what happened. Despite the droplets that slipped through the faint cracks, the exterior is stock and the interior is unsullied. This story generally works, what with the misgivings you might have with it or what stumbles it makes along the way to greatness.
As for the remaster in question:
No Return only underpinned what we laid out. A mode revolving around the, admittedly, robust combat system, with incremental rewards during every run with mods accenting them. It comes off as somewhat tone deaf, at least it can. It didn’t for me necessarily because I believe a game can have a point and still be fun despite it, but it can and will for many who play it.
The Lost Levels were what I was looking forward to the most. Once I got to play them, it turned out that the three vertical slice levels weren’t the rendering exclusions I’d hoped for. For stuff that was left at the cutting room floor, especially how it was advertised, I came in expecting there to be revelations that gave the creative decisions context, but no, they were rather inutile, with just the boar hunt giving Ellie more proper characterization. That’s fine, but still.
Is it evocative? Does it seem like shock value for the sake of it? For the some it may, but it has something to say, and it leaves the door open for a Part III to be more satisfying for everyone. I think this game was an experiment that paid off in some ways and didn’t in others, but was worth taking part in. I love this game. You may hate it, be indifferent to it, or love it just the same, and that’s okay. One thing is for sure and that’s how nuance has left the chat altogether when it comes to media discourse, at least on like, Twitter… maybe I just need to disconnect. On its own terms, it does end up working when held up to measured criticism for most part. Many people are letting their feelings cloud their judgement, hampering their ability to properly evaluate this game. It’s not something I believe, it’s something that is. On our terms, it may be flawed, even compromised in small ways, but it worked for me, and if you haven’t played it yet, I hope it works for you too.
Just for good measure, since I’m two for two on covering songs in games that aren’t part of the soundtrack, let’s bump that up to three. As follows is how I’d rank the covers and rarities EP.
1. True Faith - Inspired by Lotte Kesner’s cover
2. Wayfaring Stranger
3. Through the valley
4. Future Days
5. Take on Me
2 Comments
bro stole my pfp
Twins
Yoav
3 months ago